On 05/15/2012 02:18 PM, Thomas Schmitt wrote:
> I am a bit scared by the catastrophic potential of
> cat debian.iso > /dev/sdX
> for X = valuable hard disk.
I've wondered about that, too, when working on the relevant section of
the Debian Live Manual.
> Maybe one should advise people to first read a few MB from the stick
> and watch it blinking, before one uses that address for writing
>
> dd if=/dev/sdX of=/dev/null bs=1M count=100
Interesting approach.
As for me, I just never write to a USB key as root unless I'm absolutely
sure I need to. (Yes, I could still trash the wrong USB attached
storage, but that's likely less catastrophic than what I could
accomplish as the superuser.) What I wonder, though, is if it is
universally true that ordinary users will always have write access to a
USB key they've just inserted. Under what circumstances will they not?
Keep in mind, the user may very well be writing the USB from some
non-Debian system.
Ben